I see that our old friend Cat Stevens (or Yufus Islam as he has been known for 20 years or so) is pedaling his wares again and that the BBC are falling over themselves to give him every opportunity to publicise the release of a new album ( his music was twee and awful 30 years ago and it hasn’t changed).

I caught a bit of him on the Simon Mayo show on Radio 2 and the reverence with which he is treated is nauseating. Sycophancy doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Now it does strike me as somewhat strange that the BBC which has had its problems with the music and broadcasting business in the last 2 years or so, think Jimmy Saville, Dave Lee Travis, Rolf Harris and not to mention the likes of Stuart Hall (we won’t even mention the misdemeanors of the sacred cow that is John Peel) has given free reign to Yusuf Islam to propagate his ideas and beliefs but have never questioned him about his support for the “fatwa” on Rushdie.

Here is a man who agreed with the call for Salman Rushdie to be killed for writing his book “The Satanic Verses”. He subsequently denied that he had called for the killing and said he was “joking” and had been misinterpreted.

Well, I recommend that you watch this excerpt from a British TV programme from a good many years ago where Islam makes the most outrageous of statements regarding the killing of Rushdie and if this is his way of “joking” I wouldn’t like to hear him when he is serious about a subject. Fay Weldon who was taking part in the discussion was appalled and suggested that the police officer who was also on the panel arrest Islam for inciting people to kill Rushdie.

People say that “it was a long time ago” and yes it was, but I don’t ever recall Islam apologising for such an outrageous statement and saying “I was wrong”…… and as I far as we all know he still holds thos views today…………….so why are the BBC giving a platform to someone who incites murder?

After all, the BBC have virtually expunged every reference to the gropers and abusers named above and cut them from any programmes being re-shown yet they give a platform to an advocate of the murder of a man for the appalling crime of writing a book!

What is it about the BBC that they never seem to learn from their mistakes?. They have this capacity to shoot themselves in the foot on very regular occasions and this is another one.